


Untalked Of and Unseen

by hedda62



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Community: Meme of Interest, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedda62/pseuds/hedda62
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill: Reese and Finch, holed up somewhere with Reese hallucinating his past and no way for Finch to leave or not notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untalked Of and Unseen

"You're going to be fine, Mr. Reese," Harold said for -- he'd been counting -- the seventeenth time, noting the decreasing confidence in his voice. The first few iterations had been full of relief and thanksgiving, as he and Detective Carter had bundled a stumbling, unshaven Reese into the car, where he'd promptly collapsed with his head in Harold's lap. Forty-seven hours of searching, of sorting through detritus from the Sofia Campos case backwards, and in the end he'd broken loose on his own and found them, an astonishing achievement for a man starved, dehydrated, beaten and drugged. Harold had given himself up to hair-stroking and platitudes for the first minute of the drive, then devoted the rest to calling Dr. Tillman and persuading her into providing a diagnosis over the phone.

"I should insist on admitting him," she'd said after talking Harold through the process of checking John's vital signs, examining cuts and bruises, and holding up fingers in front of his restless eyes, "but since you've apparently got your reasons for not wanting that, I'll just tell you to take him somewhere comfortable and safe, make sure he washes those abrasions, don't let him gorge himself on food and drink, and keep an eye on him. He doesn't seem to have a concussion, so it's best if he sleeps, but I'd expect some agitation. Without a blood sample I can't tell you what they gave him. But it's clearly not a sedative. Listen, really you should--"

Harold had broken off the call at that point, though he agreed; he knew what sedatives felt like, and could deduce what they looked like, which was not an ever-increasing unease and twitchiness disturbing John Reese's potent calm. Ignoring Carter's protestations about hospitals, he'd directed her to what he judged the safest (and most easily disposable) of his residences, Crow's dull little apartment on the Lower East Side -- bars on the windows, a lock on the bedroom door, ginger ale in the fridge and something edible in the freezer, books he hadn't read five times -- dismissed her, and set about caretaking.

Reese was amenable to taking off his filthy shirt, washing his hands, sitting on a stool in the bathroom, and letting Harold dress the wounds on his back while he examined those on his front with long-practiced facility. He said nothing: a more absolute silence than Harold was used to from him, and less easy to read, but his hands were steady, and Harold left off watching them and concentrated on causing as little pain as possible. Assess, clean, disinfect, bandage; try not to think about John being hit, thrown to the ground, kicked, whipped, burnt with cigarettes.

He assumed, at first, that the little intake of breath was his fault, that he'd been careless, but then he looked over John's shoulder and saw a cut an inch and a half long in his upper abdomen, under investigation by curious fingers. By _probing_ fingers: surely he wasn't supposed to be--

"Mr. Reese, what are you doing?" Harold said sharply. "That already needs stitching; you'll make it worse--"

"Bullet," said John.

"What?"

"Have to get the bullet out."

"It's not a gunshot wound" -- he unfortunately knew what those looked like too -- "it's… they used a knife on you. Or a razor blade."

"Scissors," John said, and Harold was distracted enough by the image and the internal squirming it provoked that he failed to anticipate the speedy motion of John's hand as it shot out and grabbed. Before he could react, tiny blades had been plunged into the wound, spreading and levering the sides apart, John's chin hard against his chest as he tried to see inside despite the angle and the blood.

"Stop!" Harold squeaked, reaching for John's hand; he got an elbow to the stomach for his trouble, fell backwards coughing and folding up, and then hit the floor, breathless, with a heavy body pinning him down. He could feel sharp points at his throat, and had no doubt that even in his confused state John knew exactly how to kill someone with a pair of nail scissors.

"You're going to be fine, Mr. Reese," he said with an eerie equanimity: _fifteen,_ counted a voice in his head. "You don't need to hurt me."

"Give it to me," John said through his teeth. "Now."

"Give what--"

Cold tile pressed more firmly against Harold's back; pain shot through his bad hip and the scissors bit into his neck. "You know what I mean. Quit stalling."

Protests, explanations and reassurances all died on his tongue. "All right," he said, keeping his tone level. "Let me up, and I'll get it for you."

John maintained his threatening pose for another few seconds, then pushed himself off Harold and sat back. As Harold rolled stiffly to one side and clambered to his knees and then to his feet, he caught John staring at the bathtub; then, whatever visions he'd been experiencing seemed to pass. He shook his head and said, "Harold. What did I--"

"You're going to be fine, Mr. Reese. How about I pour you some ginger ale?" He paused at the door and added, "You need to bandage that cut. There's a robe on the hook," and headed for the kitchen, shaking.

The robe was too small for John, he saw as he turned around a minute later with the drink in his hand, but that he'd taken the suggestion was a good sign. "Here you are," he said, holding out the glass. "This'll settle your stomach, and the sugar--"

It was electrical, the speed at which John moved; it couldn't have been a full second later that Harold's spine was pressed against the counter and once again he was shrinking from a sharp object to his jugular. This time, the jagged base of the glass.

"Cyanide in the champagne," John murmured silkily, "but your little plan didn't work, and now it's time to drink a toast to your imminent demise--"

"Seriously?" Harold muttered, and then snapped out, "You're underdressed for the occasion, Mr. Reese. And I'd be happy to drink with you if you hadn't _broken_ the _glass._ You've cut yourself, too."

John looked down at his hand, and at the spots of blood on the white toweling robe, cuff well above his wrist. "Sorry, Nana," he whispered. "I'm growing again. I can't help it. I'm sorry."

"It's all right, John. Nobody blames you for anything." Harold was significantly pissed off at the gang who'd held him captive, though. Whatever they'd given him was whiplashing him through delusions at a rate neither of them could keep track of. "I think the best thing is if you lie down for a while."

"Yes, sir," he said quietly, letting himself be led to the couch, and that was a delusion Harold could live with. Not that John had ever sirred him while in his right mind; he'd gone straight to the mocking "Finch" and the occasional smug "Harold," and now… now it was almost as if they were ordinary people with recognizable modes of address. _How are you today, Harold?_ and _I'm well, John_ and…

"You're going to be fine, Mr. Reese." _Seventeen._

"Yeah, Kara. Love my work," and then Harold was down on the couch, plastered all over with amorous John. It lasted seconds; Harold was still frozen with indecision when something -- the glasses or the lack of breasts or just simply the smell -- clued John in that he had the wrong partner, and he scrambled away. "Holy fuck," he gasped.

Harold had never heard John use that word before, though he could make a guess as to when it had been habitual. "At ease, soldier," he said, and then, randomly, "It was dark. You couldn't see."

John nodded. "We walk in the dark," he said, and then, squinting at the windows, "but it's the middle of the day. Why are you taking me out of school?" His face altered, shedding a joy and innocence Harold hadn't recognized until it was gone; what remained was achingly familiar. Stoic, sad, determined. John's everyday face.

"Mr. Reese," he said, taking John by the shoulders, wanting nothing but to provide a steady anchor point. "Mr. Reese, do you know--" and then he couldn't think how to phrase the question, but John answered it anyway.

"Earliest known alias, Harold Wren," he recited, going on to list details about MIT, IFT, Nathan, Grace; an observational analysis of his injuries; the names he'd used; the addresses of three current residences, including this one. Harold let him keep talking; it was half confirmation of curiosity, and half a desire to be defined. And it might be clinical, painful, akin to having a wound probed with scissors, but it kept John in the present moment for a little while, even if for Harold it ripped open the past. Fractured it, split it anew into the jagged pieces he'd never tried hard enough to knit together.

"Yes, but who _am_ I?" he murmured to himself, because for once he could, and John looked him straight in the face for a few seconds before his eyes shifted up and sideways and he pounced, shouting "Incoming!" while pushing Harold facedown and lying on top of him.

Near-smothered, he struggled against the strong hands; by the time John released him, he was laughing, gulping air with each new giggly breath. "What's so funny?" John demanded.

It was impossible to guess who was being addressed. "I was just wondering," Harold said honestly, "when this sort of day became _normal._ But then you had years of expecting cyanide in your champagne, so clearly you're not the person to ask."

John just stared at him, and then thrust out and pushed him roughly off the couch. The attack was childish enough that when Harold recovered himself and sat up he wasn't surprised to see a fort being constructed out of the cushions. The engineering didn't look terribly stable, but John managed to crawl inside and curl up. Empathy gnawed at Harold: that need to hide was immediately familiar, both from this week and from childhood. Though he would have had a book and a flashlight in his fort. It was, come to think of it, very like a smaller version of the Library.

"I wish I could join you in there," he said.

"All alone," John muttered. "No one coming to save you."

_Forty-seven hours._ "I'm so sorry, Mr. Reese. We tried very hard to find you."

"Too far away."

"We were close several times, but they moved the van, and there was no camera near the--"

"Too many days. Time's a bitch, Harold."

"Yes. I know." And John wasn't talking about himself; he was talking about Jessica. "You really couldn't have--"

"Yes. I could."

"Well, then, so could I have. Technically. But--" Her death had been predictable and almost predestined, but not, by the strict standards of the Machine, premeditated. He wasn't sure if John knew that. "I really don't think he meant--"

The fort collapsed from within: one fierce punch of an angry fist. John shot out, lightning fast, furious. "You murdering bastard," he gritted out, and swung one of the sofa cushions at Harold with all his strength.

He said nothing else; the assault was more terrifying for being wordless. Harold crossed his arms over his face and took the blows, buffeted from side to side, trying not to gasp at the stinging. It could have been much worse, of course, and he thought the part of John that wasn't reliving the use of deadly force against Peter Arndt had chosen a harmless weapon on purpose.

John hit him eleven times; the twelfth blow faltered, and Harold peeked out in time to see the cushion tossed back onto the couch and John's face crumpling into sobs. He recognized, somehow, that this was still the same memory, and that the tears were not for Peter or even for Jessica, but for John, mourning the loss of part of himself. Much as Harold wanted to offer whatever ineffectual comfort he was capable of, he knew he'd be in real danger if he moved. He was a corpse, freshly laid out on the carpet; not the aching shell in a wheelchair miles away, whom John hadn't even met yet, and certainly not the employer and friend John knew today. Comrade in arms. Companion in shadows.

He waited to be carried off and buried, and eventually John sank to his knees, but then the delusion shifted; he could tell, even before hands began prying his arms from their defensive posture. "Harold," John rasped insistently, touching him, exploring him. "Harold, what did she do to you? Are you hurt? Are you… oh, God, please don't be--"

_I'm going to be fine, Mr. Reese._ He didn't say it; the muscles of his neck screamed in protest even at the thought of shaking his head. John's fingers were caressing, soothing; Harold was desperately hungry for the contact but he needed John to go away now, and he was going to have to say something, anything, even if it did more harm than good.

"I'm fine; I'm fine," he babbled out. "You saved me. I owe you so mmfgh--" Additional words were muffled against John's mouth, swallowed in a kiss nearly as aggressive as the one-sided pillow fight. He didn't know if he was Kara again, but whoever she was John was counting on her to hold her own. Harold wanted to emulate her -- wanted it badly -- but he was tired, numb, cringing with anticipatory embarrassment, empty of desire. He got his lips free long enough to breathe out, "John, please don't--"

"Harold." It was the neediest word he'd ever heard John utter. _Oh,_ he thought. _All right then._ At least John knew who he was with. And what he wanted. Absurd as it might be.

Not that understanding made this… intimacy any more permissible. "I can't," he said, fending off another kiss. "It's not fair. You… you're not yourself."

John pulled back far enough that Harold could see him smile, and recited name, rank and serial number: his real name, his Army rank circa 1998, but the smile was today's. "I can be whoever you want me to be," he added, his voice smoky, seductive.

_You have been. Always. Don't make me ask for more._

"Wanting is…" Harold's battered brain struggled with vocabulary, and then finished, with raw irony, "irrelevant." He pushed John away; shook himself free. "Right now I need you to be someone who eats the food I'm about to put in the microwave, and drinks some ginger ale without accusing me of poisoning him, and gets a bit of sleep. And we'll see who you are afterwards. Can you do that, Mr. Reese?"

"I think I can handle it, Harold," John said, and then he smirked like he'd just told a dirty joke: reassuringly commonplace. "Might change the order a bit, though." His eyes were already falling shut as he slid back to lean his head against the couch.

"No, wait," said Harold, wrenching himself to his feet and tidying the cushions, "lie down properly." He persuaded John into a resting position, put a blanket over him, adjusted the shades, wondered too late if he should have offered painkillers. About to head for the bathroom to clean up, he was stopped by a sleepy murmur.

"Stay. Don't leave me."

John might have been a child addressing his mother, a wounded soldier on a battlefield, a lover clutching at warmth. Or all of those. Harold knew exactly what he meant.

"Of course I won't leave you, John." He perched himself on the edge of the couch. John hadn't left him much room, so he had to sit close enough to touch. The laying on of hands was necessary, too; it was part of healing. "Shh, go to sleep," he said; it was nearly the gentlest he'd ever heard his own voice.

"Mm. Dark."

"I shut the sun out so you could rest."

"No. We're the dark."

"Are we? Not sure of your symbolism, but I'm willing to accept it as a premise. Does it mean you're more likely to doze off?"

John's mouth twitched. "Can't talk me to sleep, Harold. Mm, nice," he said as Harold indulged himself in stroking hair, and then, twenty-three strokes later, "Wake me at midnight. Go for a walk."

"You have very odd habits, Mr. Reese. I'll go with you. You shouldn't be alone."

"No. Not alone," John said, and then his breathing slowed and he said nothing more.

He woke up at about eight. Harold was in an armchair reading _Northanger Abbey,_ but he put the book down as soon as he heard John stirring. "I expect you're hungry," he said.

"Yeah," said John, started to sit up, and winced. He pulled the sides of the robe apart and peered at his stomach. "There's a bandage here," he said. "What happened… oh. Box cutter."

"Not scissors?"

"Scissors? No." Harold could see him doing an inventory of wounds without actually looking at most of them. "Did you treat my back? Tape on the shoulder's pulling a little. But thanks."

"Don't you remember?"

John looked around. "I don't even know where I am. You buy me another apartment, Finch? This one's not quite up to standard."

Harold sniffed. "It's Crow's."

"You say that like he's another person than you. I guess he's moving soon."

"Possibly. So you don't remember anything that happened here?"

"That sounds ominous." John sat up all the way and peered at Harold. Then he touched his cheek. "You have a bruise starting," he said, his mouth tightening. "What did I do?"

"Nothing really. You were a bit confused; that's all."

"Harold."

"I'm not lying, Mr. Reese." Lies of omission didn't count; or they never had before. "Mostly you slept. I thawed some vegetable soup that was in the freezer; would you like some? And maybe some ging-- some tea, perhaps? If you'd like to get dressed first, I took the liberty of ordering some casual clothing for you; it's in the bedroom. We'll need to stitch that cut at some point, as well."

"Soup sounds like a plan. I'll go put some clothes on." John paused, added, "Thanks, Harold," and got to his feet; it wasn't exactly springing up, but he looked like his usual self as he strode quickly across the room. Harold waited till he'd closed the door to lever himself painfully up out of the chair and limp heavily into the kitchen.

"And we shall never speak of this again," he murmured in a stage-German accent, scooping the soup into a pot and turning on the burner. Not that he'd be able to forget being threatened, being pummeled, being made love to, but it was better that John recalled none of it; it would hurt him horribly to know what he'd done to Harold. And aside from the evidence of bruises and broken glass, it hadn't been real, no more than Harold Crow was real, no more than Harold Finch was. If John ever came to know him, truly and completely, he'd want to hit him with something more solid than sofa cushions. It was unfortunate, if just, that you couldn't change the past; you could only hide it, and even then it oozed out around the edges, in dreams, in hallucinations, in ghostly taunts from the long dead, the long vanished, the long denied. Yesterdays haunting all your tomorrows.

"Time," he said out loud, stirring, "is a bitch indeed. You were right, John."

"Glad to know it," John said behind him, making him jump. "Soup smells good, Harold. How soon do we eat?"

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for the title. It's ~~my process~~ a running joke now. I have threatened to write the fic where John Reese goes down for the last time with a deadpan joke a la Mercutio, and call it "A Grave Man." Let's see how depressed I am after the season 2 finale.


End file.
